Easy Blooming Onion

The blooming onion is an impressive looking appetizer, and one that’s great to share. Follow this simple recipe on how to slice and fry a blooming onion.

INGREDIENTS

1 large onion

1 1/2 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons paprika

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 dried/ground teaspoon thyme

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 eggs

1 cup milk

DIRECTIONS

Mix all dry ingredients together in one bowl, and wet ingredients together in another.

Peel the onion, keeping the hairy root intact. Cut about 1 inch off the other side.

Place the onion on a chopping board, hairy side facing up. Make your first cut about an inch from the top of the root, and slice downward all the way to the bottom, without cutting all the way through. Rotate the onion 90° and repeat. Keep going until you have 4 evenly spaced cuts.

Now make equally spaced cuts in between these 4 cuts. You are probably looking at making at least 2 more cuts per quarter, meaning 12 sections to your onion by the time you are finished. The professional ones have more like 24+ sections, but don’t feel pressured! If you can fit in more than 12 sections, then obviously the finished results will be all the more striking, but this depends on the size of the onion, the sharpness of your knife, and your steady hand.

Turn the onion on its hairy back, and begin to peel open the sections—unfurling from the outside, and working toward the center. It can get tricky toward the middle, so stop when you’ve done as much as you can. If a section breaks off, don’t worry – no one will ever notice.

Put the blooming onion onto a plate and sprinkle over your dry ingredients, making sure all the layers are covered. Turn it upside down and snip off any excess root hair (grooming is necessary, even for an onion), and shake to get rid of any excess mix. There will still be plenty of dry mix left.

Submerge the onion into your bowl of wet ingredients, and turn it over to make sure every part of the onion is covered. Take it out, and coat with your dry mix again, this time just shaking it over to cover all areas.

Place the onion, flower side up, into a deep fryer or deep pan, making sure the veggie oil is around 350°F (175°C). 7-10 minutes will make sure you are left with a crispy, golden beauty, but keep your eye on it. When you retrieve the onion, the petals will have unfurled even more, so that you have a truly blooming onion. Give it a shake, then put it on some paper towels to drain off the excess oil.

Share the SWEET-ness. Like and follow us! We are Sweet Basil Farm & Gardens on Facebook. Look for us on Pinterest, Youtube,Instagram, Google+ and Twitter. Sweet Basil Farms is an 80 acre working farm, consisting of large vegetable, fruit and herb gardens, fruit orchards and livestock, where we put great emphasis on natural gardening, growing and livestock management practices. We raise and breed Pyredoodles, Great Pyrenees and Standard Poodles. We also breed and sell poultry, pet pigs, pygmy goats and over 300 varieties of bearded irises and so much more. We are proud members of Georgia Grown and the American Poultry Association.

Our commitment to the communities we serve is to give back to each. We are honored to work with and have many Georgia schools and PTA Partnerships. We work closely with several food ministries, and churches to help them meet the needs in their communities with fresh food every week. James 2:14-26 tells us that our faith is dead without works. Our business model is based upon that. The first fruits of our harvest is always given to God. While it is not necessarily the “temple” as it was thousands of years ago, it is always to worthy community based organizations that are brought before us, and sometimes families in need that others know. They have structures in place to our harvest to many people, that otherwise would not have access to fresh healthy fruits and vegetables.

An 1840’s General Store situated on our property, is used as our on site Farmer’s Market. The old General Store was once the central hub for a railroad community, and served many important roles in the community of Goggans, even a United States Post Office until the 1960’s. It later served a new and bigger community purpose, inspiring our Farmers Market To You program to be born. This building is registered as a Historical site, and is adjacent to the old “Doctor’s Building”, which is rumored to have served as a Courthouse, among other things. The history on our property, rich with farming and community purpose, inspired us to serve our community in a new and exciting way.

We, both David and I, have always had a passion for growing flowers and plants, rooted from wonderful Grandmothers’ teachings. We, like everyone, began to make a more conscience effort to eat healthy and naturally grown fresh food. Since we have 80 acres, we began by adding a “small” acre and a half vegetable garden. When people began driving an hour or two, just to buy our tomatoes and cucumbers, we realized there was a real need in many communities for families like ours….and Farmers Market To You was born. We have been blessed to expand in to several of our neighboring communities, with our Farmers Market To You Market Basket program…and touch and reach families along the way. We donate food and cash to needy families, food ministries, PTA’s, churches and other vital community service organizations in each of the communities we serve.

This recipe, blog post and photos by Tisha Johnson Matthews, of Sweet Basil Farm & Gardens. Special thanks to J. David Matthews, of Barnesville, Georgia for support and patience with all that I try and test. To see the original recipe, or to find more delicious recipes, visit Tablespoon.